Facts and opinions related to the reprographics business and the reprographics industry as well as articles and information related to the A/E/C industry served by reprographers. This blog is intended for reprographers, for vendors who sell to reprographers and for analysts and investors who are interested in learning more about the reprographics industry. (YOU CAN CONTACT THE BLOG AUTHOR at joel.salus@mac.com or at joel.salus@me.com)

Being
the curious sort, I reached out – to the listing broker - to find out the name
of the company for sale, and, after signing a non-disclosure agreement, I
received a file titled “Presentation”.The “presentation” file included, among other information, an income
statement for the first six months of 2014.

I’m not
going to tell you the name or the location of this business, because I did
agree to not disclose that information.

And,
anyway, that’s not the purpose of this blog-post.The purpose of this blog-post is to, very briefly, talk about “what to do and
what not to do” when attempting to sell your business.

1.Be able to initially provide prospective purchasers a very
recent, up-to-date, annual P&L for the business. (Most will want to see
more than that, but that should serve as a starter.)In the case above, in spite of the fact that
annual sales were stated in the business-for-sale ad, the P&L included in
the presentation file was only for the first six months of 2014.

2.Make damn sure that whatever numbers are stated in the ad tie to numbers that are in the
P&L.Whenever numbers don’t tie in, that immediately raises
questions.

3.If you’re going to state in the ad (or in the financial
information you furnish) that the “Owner’s Benefit” (meaning the Owner’s “take”
from the earnings of the business) is such and such, list out the specific line
items and amounts that were used to arrive at the “Owner’s Benefit.”In the case of the presentation file I looked
at, the “net income” was stated to be $81,579 (for the full year 2014) and the Owner’s
Benefit was stated to be $150,779, with no detailed explanation as to what
items were added back to net income to arrive at the amount stated as the
Owner’s Benefit.And, as I previously
pointed out, the presentation file did not provide a P&L for the full year.

The
point being that, if you are going to put your business up for sale and are
serious about selling, know that it’s
vital to put your best foot forward regarding the information that you initially present to prospective
buyers.

Archive of Blog-posts on Repro 101 when Repro 101 was hosted on IRgA web-site

To access the archive of blog posts that were put up on Reprographics 101 when Repro 101 was hosted on the IRgA web-site, go to the blog-post put up on May 31st, 2013, and, when you locate that blog-post, you will find a list of the pdf files that contain those previous blog-posts, as well as "links" to each pdf file.

About Me

40+ year involvement in the reprographics business and industry. Former Chairman/CEO of Rowley-Scher Reprographics, Former Senior Vice President & Chief Business Strategist of National Graphic Imaging (NGI). Former Managing Director of the International Reprographics Association (IRgA). Active as a Management Consultant to firms in the reprographics business. (My consulting practice is called ProActive Management Programs LLC.)